1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to watering controllers and more particularly to a controller for use with a plurality of electrically activated valves for automatically regulating the time, location, and duration of lawn, shrub, and drip watering.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Sequential indexing switches for activating multiple stations are well known in the art including U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,040,227; 3,040,228; 3,227,821; 3,224,912; 3,291,922; 3,305,649; and 3,878,345. All of these switches are mechanical rotary units. None of them have means for determining the hour or day on which the indexing should start. Separate clocks have been utilized to automatically start the indexing switches at desired times. An example of such a day and hour clock is U.S. Pat. No. 3,864,539 to Hauser. A day timer disc is located inside a drum type hour timer which is driven by an electric motor. The day timer disc is advanced once a day by an indexing pin. Switch actuators are located in the hour positions on the hour wheel and the day positions on the day wheel. An indexing switch such as those disclosed in the preceding series of patents is activated only when a switch actuator at one location of the hour timer activates an hour switch and switch actuator at one location of the day timer simultaneously activates a day switch to provide an electric circuit to the indexing device.
All the devices described above are mechanically complicated and require numerous parts. Skilled assembly of the devices is required at great expense. The numerous parts increase the possibility of failure of the total device because of the failure of any given part.